


Colourful Bandages and Invisible Pain

by Andramion



Series: A Week's Worth of HinaKen [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, i swear its a lot less angsty than the title suggests, kenma's mum is probably my favourite parent to write, motherly musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5016391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andramion/pseuds/Andramion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her firstborn son had come home with her, Mrs Kozume sometimes wondered if it had all been too early for her. Her husband wasn’t home much, her friends and family were over two hours away from her new home and she still didn’t know how to cook.</p><p>And Kenma. Wouldn’t. Stop. Crying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colourful Bandages and Invisible Pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bibbidibobbididette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibbidibobbididette/gifts).



> This one is a little bit messy and might be confusing if you don’t know what this soulmate AU is about, but: soulmates have an emotional connection in which they can constantly feel the other’s emotions/sensations like static in the back of their head. It’s not so much “just static” for Kenma sometimes.
> 
> You can read more about it here: https://twitter.com/Andramion/status/636173509266440193

After her firstborn son had come home with her, Mrs Kozume sometimes wondered if it had all been too early for her. Her husband wasn't home much, her friends and family were over two hours away from her new home and she still didn't know how to cook.

And Kenma. Wouldn't. Stop. Crying.

It wasn't like she was good at keeping a proper sleeping schedule to begin with, but having a new-born screaming for hours on end wasn't helping much either. Getting along with her next-door-neighbour did, though. Having a young child herself, Mrs Kuroo was always willing to offer Mrs Kozume some advice.

"You see," Mrs Kuroo would say, "our Tetsurou never cried much," and then she'd offer one of the many things she and her husband had tried over the past year or so.

* * *

Ten months and five nights after she'd first put Kenma to bed in his brand-new crib, Mrs Kozume woke up, looked at the clock on her bedside table and realised she'd slept in past noon. After rushing to the baby's room and finding Kenma staring up at her quietly, she lifted him up into her arms and rested him against her chest. Then she sat down in her wicker rocking chair and sagged down, patting Kenma's back lightly as she hummed a song, sending them both to sleep again.

As if to make up for his time before, Kenma turned into a quiet child after that, soft-spoken and shy. Mrs Kozume thanked the gods for being able to sleep through the night, and if she was worried about Kenma's interactions with the other kids at school - or rather, the lack thereof - those feelings were quickly and easily laid to rest by the Kuroos' kid barrelling into her house to drag Kenma outside.

* * *

When Kenma was four, Tetsurou came running into the house with more urgency than Mrs Kozume had ever seen.

"Oba-san! Kenma's crying!" His eyes were big with fright, tears gathering at the corners of his own eyes, and Mrs Kozume held Tetsurou's tiny hand firmly as she let herself be led to the playground across the street.

There, Kenma had crawled into the ladybug-shaped dome, sniffling as tears ran down his cheeks.

"Mummy," Kenma called for her, his voice louder than she'd ever heard it before, and he pointed at his knees. "They hurt, mummy!"

Hastily, she knelt down in front of the opening in the ladybug and stretched her arms out to pull Kenma up and into the daylight again. She patted him down his sides, checking to see if anything was wrong, but Tetsurou kept insisting he was sure Kenma hadn't fallen.

"He just started crying out of nowhere, he was standing and suddenly he wanted to sit down." Mrs Kozume nodded, glad Tetsurou was looking out for Kenma, but she still didn't know what was wrong with her own child. His knees looked perfectly fine, there wasn't even any dirt on his shorts.

"Kenma, lovely, where does it hurt?" she asked him once again, but Kenma just pressed his palms over his knees again.

In the end, she decided to just bring both the children home and after giving them an ice lolly to placate both the crying Kenma and the startled Tetsurou, she sat down next to Kenma and wondered what was going on for long after Kenma stopped saying that it hurt.

* * *

When Kenma was seven, he screamed in his school's courtyard and grabbed at his arm, holding it close to his chest and cradling his elbow. Half an hour later, while Mrs Kozume sat in the emergency room with him, Kenma tugged at her sleeve and told her he was fine after all.

A few months later, she noticed him rubbing at his knees again, Then his shoulder, the back of his legs and his head, but he never said anything about it again.

* * *

At sixteen, Kenma brought over a boy who introduced himself with a bright smile and tripped as he stepped out of the genkan, falling face-first onto the hardwood floor, and Mrs Kozume watched Kenma rub at his forehead absent-mindedly for the rest of the evening.

At night, when Kenma was about to shut his door, Mrs Kozume stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and smiled as she asked him:

"He's sixteen too, isn't he? Ten months and... 5 days younger than you?"

"How do you," Kenma started and Mrs Kozume rested her palm against his cheek and winked at him.

"You know, I didn't realise until tonight, when Shouyou told us about breaking his arm when he was six, that I must've caused your dad quite some trouble too when we were kids."

At that, Kenma's eyes went wide and his hand flew up to touch his forehead again.

"You mean?"

"Hmm," Mrs Kozume confirmed it for him. "I used to suffer from scraped knees a lot too, you know, I was a rather active type of kid. I hope grandma didn't get too angry with your dad."

Kenma nodded and looked over his shoulder, turning away a little and giving Mrs Kozume a clear view of Shouyou too - asleep on top of the guest futon and with his arms littered with brightly coloured bandages.

"I thought I was the only one," Kenma said softly and Mrs Kozume let out a chuckle.

"I wouldn't say it's common, but you're definitely not the only one with this kind of connection out there, Kenma." She pressed a kiss on his cheek and smiled as she watched him recoil a little in surprise. "But I'm just so glad you found him. After all, your soulmate is not someone you want to miss in life."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are very welcome, so feel free to let me know what you thought!


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